AHA News NowMar 6, 2014

Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), John Thune (R-SD), Richard Burr (R-NC), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Mike Enzi (R-WY) and Pat Roberts (R-KS) today urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to provide details on its plan to grant health care providers hardship exemptions from the 2014 meaningful use requirements for electronic health records, instead of granting additional time as AHA and other provider groups have requested. “We were disappointed to hear this announcement, even more so because of the lack of clarity about how the exceptions will be administered,” the senators said in a letter to CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner. “Thus, we are writing to ask that you immediately clarify how the hardship exceptions will be granted…Given the importance of this issue to hundreds of thousands of providers participating in the electronic health records program, we urge CMS to respond to our request for clarification as soon as possible.”